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1130 Words
Evelyn curled into herself like a wounded sparrow, her porcelain skin gone ghostly pale.
"Executing her solves nothing, my lord." Nathaniel's grip tightened on Lucian's wrist. "Let the moon decide her fate."
The silver-plated revolver stilled. "Explain."
"Wait for the full moon." The handsome man's glasses caught candlelight. "If she survives the transformation..."
Understanding dawned.
The gun barrel traced circles on her cheek where tears had frozen hours before. "Two days," Lucian growled.
"Disappoint me, and we'll see how many bones shatter before screams stop."
The door slammed.
Evelyn collapsed against silk sheets, trembling fingers gripping bedposts.
Nathaniel adjusted his stethoscope. "He bluffs when provoked."
Her throat produced only whimpers.
"Obey, and by moonrise..." He produced a syringe filled with amber liquid. "...we'll have answers even your screams can't deny."
"What exactly do you want from me?" Evelyn pressed her palm against the cold stone wall.
Nathaniel adjusted his stethoscope. "The lord's... medical condition requires discretion."
"Condition?" Her laugh echoed in the vaulted chamber. "You mean his toddler tantrums?"
The physician's scalpel glinted as he cleaned it. "Cooperate with the lunar trials. If you're not our midnight intruder..." He snapped his medical case shut. "...you'll walk free by dawn."
Evelyn's fingers dug into velvet drapes. Lunacy. All of it.
Yet the memory of Lucian's silver-plated revolver clicking against her teeth made her stomach churn.
For forty-eight hours, she became a ghost in the east wing. Meals appeared through a wall slot. Chamber pots got emptied by gloved hands. Only when moonlight bled through barred windows did they come for her.
The grandfather clock chimed witching hour when Evelyn jolted awake. Cold sweat plastered her nightgown to trembling limbs.
In the nightmare's afterglow, phantom fangs still grazed her throat.
A wolf-like figure with glowing emerald eyes had pinned her beneath clawed hands, his merciless violation carved fresh scars where moonlight couldn't reach.
The white-hot agony of his final thrust is shockingly vivid.
"Just a dream." She slapped her cheeks until the four-poster bed's velvet drapes came into focus. The carafe stood empty - three days of self-imposed exile left her parched.
Moonlight guided her through the serpentine corridor. Gilded frames holding Rembrandt originals mocked her thirst. Bloodsucking aristocratic leech, she cursed the absent lord, drawn like a moth to the library's slivered glow.
The ajar door revealed towering mahogany shelves stretching cathedral-high. First editions worth kingdoms gleamed in lamplight... and not a soul in sight.
Evelyn's breath caught. The library stretched endlessly, towering mahogany shelves crammed with leather-bound tomes glinting under crystal chandeliers.
Her university's collection paled in comparison.
A rolling ladder creaked under her eager steps. "First editions..." Her fingertips brushed gilded spines worth more than her tuition. "Shakespeare folios... Newton's Principia..."
The leathery snap of a book closing froze her blood.
"Trespassing, Miss Voss?"
She whirled. The ladder wobbled. Her heel slipped on Darwin's Origin.
The fall seemed endless.
Lucian's arms instinctively closed around the plummeting figure.
Vanilla-scented warmth flooded his senses as her body collided with his chest.
Evelyn kept her eyes screwed shut, bracing for impact against the marble floors. Instead, she found herself molded against rock-hard muscle.
Tick. Tock. The grandfather clock's pendulum sliced through the silence.
"Planning to nest here?" His voice could frost wine.
Her eyes flew open to glacial blue irises. "I... You..."
Revulsion twisted Lucian's features. He dumped her like spoiled milk.
Thud.
"Ow!" Rubbing her tailbone, she glared at the aristocrat lounging on the Chesterfield sofa. "Gentlemen use their words, not gravity!"
"Trespassers earn what they deserve." He swirled burgundy in crystal. "This isn't a public museum."
Evelyn brushed dust from her skirt. "I got lost! Your castle's a maze!"
"Wait." The command vibrated with an ancient stone.
Evelyn's knees locked. Cold sweat beaded along her spine as Lucian's cologne—vanilla laced with gunpowder—enveloped her.
"Trembling, little mouse?" His breath seared her earlobe.
"N-no..." Her molars chattered. Every survival instinct screamed run, but her feet fused to the Persian rug.
Lucian's signet ring bit into her chin as he forced eye contact. "The gunplay left its mark, I see."
In the gilded mirror behind him, Evelyn watched her own terrified reflection bob. "My... my earlier behavior was inexcusable." The lie tasted sour. "Your magnanimity humbles me."
Wisdom bows to power. Her pride curdled like month-old milk.
Lucian's calloused thumb traced her jawline. "This docile act..." His lips brushed her earlobe. "...makes me crave dessert before dinner."
Evelyn's forced laugh rattled like loose change. "L-look at the time! You must be tired. "
She barely lifted a foot before being slammed against leather-bound volumes. Ancient parchment dust billowed around them.
"Running?" His knee pressed between her thighs. "Smart prey knows when to play dead."
Her whimper seemed to amuse him. Lucian twirled a lock of her hair around his signet ring. "Rest does sound appealing." The double entendre dripped like honey. "Shall we retire... properly?"
"Goodnight!" She twisted free, only to be hauled against his chest.
"Did I dismiss you?" His breath smelled of forbidden things—absinthe and gun oil.
Evelyn's palms flattened against his waistcoat. "W-we haven't... I'd remember!"
Lucian's laughter chilled the library. "Memory's fickle, little liar." He nipped her collarbone. "But your body... ah, that never lies."
She shoved him with surprising strength. "Your delusions aren't my prison!"
As she fled, his promise chased her down the corridor: "You're the cure I'll swallow whole, Evelyn Voss."
Evelyn collapsed onto the canopy bed, her pulse still racing from the labyrinthine escape through the castle's west wing.
"Damn you, Lucian Blackthorne!" She pummeled the down pillow. "With your god complexes and antique pistols!"
The feather-stuffed cushion bore silent witness to her fury. Moonlight through leaded-glass windows painted silver stripes across her rumpled sheets.
Tomorrow's full moon ritual loomed like a guillotine blade. Would they strap her to that brass contraption in the observatory again? The one with the leather restraints and mercury-filled gauges?
She traced the carved bedpost's grotesque figures demons devouring maidens. "Just get through the night," she whispered to the four-poster's velvet drapery. "Then freedom."
Evelyn's fourth day trapped in the turret room felt like a death row countdown. When twilight bled through stained glass, the castle's pulse changed—servants dwindled to shadows, leaving only the tick-tock of grandfather clocks.
The knock came at witching hour.
Benedict's gloved hand hovered in mid-air. "The hour is upon us, Miss Voss."
"Where are we?"
"All shall be revealed." The butler's smile didn't reach his eyes.
Their procession moved through a corridor that bled shadows. Evelyn's pumps clicked against flagstones older than her lineage.
"Why does everything feel..." She touched a cobwebbed sconce. "...cursed?"
Benedict halted before an oaken door carved with wolf heads. His finger joints whitened on the brass knob. "Your answers lie within."
- Writer
